Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury bats for Congress and Left Front alliance for 2021 Bengal assembly elections

"Delhi (AICC or Congress high command) will not come in the way of Congress-Left parties alliance in the 2021 West Bengal assembly poll," newly appointed Bengal unit Congress president Chowdhury told reporters after meeting state party leaders here on Friday.

Bengal will go to polls in the next 8 to 9 months for 294 assembly seats.

The BJP has already started campaigning and claimed it will unseat the Mamata Banerjee government.

The saffron brigade won 18 parliamentary seats in 2019, from 2 in 2014, eating into
Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress's share, which plummeted to 22 from 33, while Congress managed just 2 seats and the Left parties led by CPI(M) drew a blank.

A five-time MP, Chowdhury, representing Baharampur in Murshidabad, on Friday for the first time held a meeting with with the senior leaders after being reappointed as the party chief for the second time in two years following the death of state party chief Somen Mitra.

Chowdhury said the AICC has reappointed him at this crucial time and since he is representing the high command his opinion backed the true alliance with the left parties for the next year poll.

Sixty-four-year-old five time MP, Chowdhury is known for his rivalry with Banerjee and strong criticism of the TMC government.

Sources in the party said Chowdhury is of the opinion that all political programmes henceforth should be conveyed to the left leadership to foster the spirit of alliance ahead of the crucial 2021 assembly elections.

Though Congress and CPI(M) have organised several programmes to oppose the ruling TMC and the BJP in the recent months, in and outside the Assembly, but at the same time the understanding between them had a setback when the Congress leadership in New Delhi maintained a close relationship with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, which many state Congress leaders fail to explain Congress followers and party activists.

Incidentally, the TMC had captured power in West Bengal for the first time in 2011 in an alliance with Congress and unseated the CPI(M) led Left Front's 33 years rule.

However, the alliance broke two years later.

Congress then entered into an alliance with the Left in 2016 assembly polls when Chowdhury was at the helm of the West Bengal unit of the party.

However, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls no such alliance was formed and the Left failed to win a single seat.